Announcers make mistakes. Often. It happens. And generally speaking, even in the most high leverage moments, in the most consequential seconds of a sporting event, a botched call doesn’t quite rise to the level of blunder that Leigh Diffey‘s unfortunate call did during the Men’s 100m Final in this year’s Paris Olympics.
Regularly the most highly anticipated event of the Summer Olympics, this year’s Men’s 100m Final was no exception. With American sprinter Noah Lyles a favorite to win gold in the event for Team USA for the first time since 2004, along with being held in a favorable Sunday afternoon time slot, the race will undoubtedly be one of the most-watched moments of the Olympics for NBC this year.
Unfortunately, it will also be a race marred by a call in which play-by-play announcer Leigh Diffey confidently and incorrectly asserted Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson was the winner despite a razor-tight finish. Ultimately, the American Lyles edged Thompson by mere thousandths of a second after a photo determined the winner, a result that only became apparent to viewers after cameras captured Lyles celebrating about 30-seconds after the race was over.
For certain, Diffey’s call is not the first time an announcer has misled viewers during the crucial moments of a game. Recent examples may include Brian Anderson mistakenly calling “For the win!” as Mamadi Diakite made a game-tying basket at the buzzer during a Virginia-Purdue Elite Eight game in 2019. Or Mike Breen saying the officials were waving off a game-winning bucket by Jayson Tatum during Game 1 of Nets-Celtics in 2022 (they were not). Or even Chip Caray‘s infamous “Line drive, base hit. Caught out there.” call during extra innings of an AL tiebreaker game in 2009, a slip up that ultimately cost him his role as lead MLB play-by-play announcer for TBS.
However, none of these memorable gaffes rise to the level of Diffey’s 100m blunder on Sunday. For one, those calls were all comparatively inconsequential. None were made during the pinnacle moment for that given sport, unlike today’s gold medal race.
Second, all three were relatively innocuous. Anderson’s call was easily cleared up by glancing at the score bug and seeing the game was tied (and also because he corrected himself seconds later). Breen’s was forgivable since the officials were going straight to the monitor to review the play anyway, though the initial call probably caused some panic among Celtics fans. And Caray’s call was simply a slip of the tongue. Any person watching the game could clearly see there was no base hit, the outfielder caught the ball. Though to be fair, the criticism of Caray had been mounting for some time before this mistake, which perhaps put the call under a bit of a magnifying glass.
On the other hand, Diffey seemed to let his initial assessment of the race distract from the rest of his call. Diffey identified Jamaica’s Thompson midway through the race as a likely winner and seemed to lock-in on the runner the rest of the way. As Thompson approached the finish line Diffey shouted, “Jamaica’s going to do it!” Inexplicably, Lyles, the eventual winner, was not mentioned by Diffey once during the race.
Notably, analyst Ato Boldon seemed to concur with Diffey’s assessment of the race in the immediate aftermath, though he hedged by saying, “Visually we think he got it. They’re working on the photo.” The “we” in that statement may suggest that Diffey and Boldon were being told by their producers that Thompson had won, or that it at least appeared Thompson had won. Nevertheless, fans were left to presume that Thompson was going to be presented a gold medal.
Calling an event like the 100m is inherently a huge undertaking. An announcer has under ten seconds to name two or three runners that look like they have a chance at winning. They’ll maybe have enough time to mention either a poor start or strong finish by a single runner. It’s possibly one of the most difficult sporting events to call, full stop.
On top of the sheer speed with which the event takes place, it’s often incredibly difficult to identify the winner in real time. A close race, as was just seen, can be decided by hundredths, sometimes thousandths of a second. That’s why one of the most important things an announcer can do in the 100m is convey ambiguity.
Look no further than Larry Collmus‘ call during this year’s Kentucky Derby for a masterclass in announcing a finish with no apparent winner. In the closing seconds of this year’s Derby, Collmus bellows, “These three. Coming down to the wire! Who’s it going to be? Oh, it’s a photo at the Derby! Oh it’s a photo! Was it Mystik Dan or was it Sierra Leone?”
Not only does Collmus capture the excitement of the close finish, but he does not make any proclamation about the winner. He knows a photo will decide the race, and let’s the ambiguity tell the story.
Imagine if Diffey had chosen the patient route like Collmus? Fans could have been on the edge of their seats awaiting a winner until the camera catches Lyles’ celebration, which would have told the full story. Instead, fans were left confused, assuming Thompson had won for 30-seconds until Lyles ripped his bib off in elation.
Announcers make mistakes. For Diffey, this will surely be a lesson learned. However, it’s difficult to think of a missed call so blatant during a sport’s marquee event. Unfortunately, that means Diffey’s call will be remembered in the annals of announcer gaffes for all the wrong reasons.
